My mother gave me an acorn squash the other day.  She is the epitome of a true Southern Lady, and a wonderful cook, but I don’t remember her cooking acorn squash when I was growing up in north Florida.  We moved to New York City when I was 12 and our meals took on a more adventurous flair.  Shopping for food in the big city was an exciting event.  The local markets were full of foods I had never seen or eaten, and restaurants offered much more intriguing menus than I could  imagine.

Everything we could ever want was right there in our neighborhood.  There were Jewish delis with fresh bagels, challah bread, rugelach, corned beef on freshly baked rye bread, and matzah ball soup.  The vegetable markets had all the usual corn, potatoes, and string beans, but they also had fascinating purple broccoli, colorful heirloom tomatoes, starfruit and dragon fruit.  There were butcher shops with foie gras (goose or duck liver), whole sides of beef, pork and lamb, pheasants and rabbit sausage.  Chinese markets where you could purchase huge whole fish or just the fish heads, sardines that weren’t in tins, dried shrimp and oysters, five spice powder and star anise pods.  Indian markets, Hispanic markets.  New York City is truly a melting pot.  Every culture was represented, and we tried them all.

My mother is adventurous and she readily took on the challenge of cooking wonderful new meals.  We had fresh asparagus with hollandaise sauce, pomegranates, lox and bagels, and cheese and spices from all over the world,   I was exposed to Japanese dishes when she joined a Japanese-American women’s organization. Her tempura was to die for..

Growing up, my mother was shooed out of the kitchen while my grandmother cooked.  She will laugh and tell you that when she married my dad, he had to teach her how to scramble an egg. But she learned, and became an amazing cook.

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen when I was growing up.  I loved to watch as mom prepared a simple meatloaf or something more complex like stuffed artichokes.   She taught me how to cut up a whole chicken and how to bake, broil and fry it.  Using my grandmother’s recipes, she taught me how to make a perfect cake from scratch, how to choose a ripe cantaloupe, and how to peel back the husk to make sure an ear of corn was going to be perfect.  She was a wonderful teacher, and very patient.

I started out with an acorn squash and ended up going down memory lane.  Back to the squash.  They are so beautiful, and come in many colors. I love to use them as table decorations, and they are also an amazingly versatile vegetable.  Acorn squash are perfect simply baked, brushed with a little butter and a sprinkle of salt.  They are also wonderful containers for just about any kind of stuffing you can imagine.

I cooked one the other night and it was a perfect meal in and of itself.  The hardest part of cooking an acorn squash is just cutting it in half.  Make sure you have a very sharp knife.  I like to score the outside before cutting into the squash to try for equal halves.  You can cut it from top to bottom, or you can cut it like I did by cutting off a slice from each end and then cutting the squash in the center.

The seeds and pithy strings need to be scooped out.  I usually use a grapefruit spoon with a serrated edge to get it all, but just a regular tablespoon works well.  The seeds can be saved and roasted like pumpkin seeds.

Parchment paper or foil are helpful to line the bottom of your baking dish, or even cooking spray, to keep the squash from sticking to the pan.

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